


Still (Always)

by mousapelli



Category: South Park
Genre: Developing Relationship, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 06:28:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12811638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousapelli/pseuds/mousapelli
Summary: Five times Craig saw Tweek hold absolutely still, and once they actually talked about what the heck they're doing together.





	Still (Always)

**Author's Note:**

> One minute i was trying to figure out if Craig really did own a guinea pig, and then next I'd discovered the CraigxTweek episode and watched it four times, plus the new one this season where Craig calls Tweek 'babe' and 'honey' super casually. Then I wrote 8k about it. What the heck.

"It's getting late, boys!" Craig's mother called from the kitchen. Craig barely looked up from television, occupied with his Xbox controller, but Tweek startled with a quiet yelp. "Finish up your game!"

"Ugh, Jesus," Tweek muttered. Craig started backtracking to a save point, one eye on Tweek. He'd been slumped against the back of the couch since dinner, not exactly relaxed, but not fidgeting the way he was now, tugging on his mis-buttoned shirt and glancing fitfully at the darkness outside the living room window. 

Craig didn't comment on it, but he wondered to himself if Tweek was more anxious about going home in the dark or dealing with his parents. The dark, he decided, because Tweek had tossed his phone aside on the couch rather than compulsively checking his messages. Tweek's outbursts were paranoid and crazy, but after two weeks of spending so much time together, Craig was getting the idea that they weren't entirely unpredictable. 

"My dad can drive you," Craig said, hitting the power button on his controller. He turned just as Tweek opened his mouth. "If you're worried about car accidents you can sit in the backseat so you won't see it coming."

"I—" Tweek cut off, startled by Craig's suggestion. "Urgh!"

"Tweek, honey!" Mrs. Tucker called, leaning in the doorway. "I already called your mother to ask if you could spend the night. There's extra toothbrushes in the cabinet, so you boys get on up there, lights out in 15 minutes! Craig, lend him some pajamas."

"Wh-what?!" Tweek twitched, staring at Craig. Craig was staring back, eyes just as wide. Tweek hissed, "C-craig! Is this a—GAH—a b-boyfriend thing?"

"Not really," Craig said. He was pretty sure parents shouldn't set up sleepovers between their dating kids whether they were gay or straight or anything else, but he'd given up on trying to make sense of any of it. Tweek was still staring at him, one eye twitching. "It's fine. You've been to a sleepover before, right?"

"Like one," Tweek answered, shoulders hunching. "In first g-grade. I thought there was a—NGH—monster in Clyde's closet and my p-parents had to come and get me at 2 AM. AGH! No one's invited me since."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Craig said. 

"BOYS!" Craig's mother snapped, making Tweek jump and shriek 'JESUS!' "I said MARCH! It's a school night!"

Craig held out a hand, shrugging one shoulder, and Tweek blinked at him one more time before taking it and letting Craig pull him upstairs. They had some quiet negotiations while brushing their teeth in the bathroom about pajamas and whether they should use sleeping bags on the floor. Tweek shrugged or mumbled agreement through his toothpaste, glancing around Craig's bathroom as if expecting to find things lurking in the corners. 

"Let's just share the bed, the floor's cold," Craig decided, pushing Tweek into bed. Maybe having Craig between him and door would calm him down a little. Craig eyed Tweek critically as Tweek edged back against the headboard, gaze darting from Craig to the closet and back again. "Do you even sleep?"

"Not m-much," Tweek said, one shoulder twitching. 

"Didn't think so." Craig sighed, yanking the blankets up. "There's an outlet between my bed and the wall, so plug your phone in and stick it under the pillow. You can get it back out once my mom's checked on us once, that's what I do sometimes."

"Th-thanks." Tweek offered Craig a small smile. It only lasted a second, and it wasn't much different from when his mouth twitched, but Craig had seen a few of them since they'd agreed to go back out. Craig smiled back, just in case he was right. 

Craig never had much trouble dropping off to sleep once his light was out. He rolled onto his side, his back to the soft glow of Tweek's phone, and was out just after his mother stuck her head in. He woke up a while later, blinking blearily at his clock before the numbers made any kind of sense. Turning over, he expected to find Tweek either asleep or still on his phone, but to his surprise, Tweek was sitting on his knees, nose pressed against the glass of his window, Craig's thermal curtains pushed to the side. The light coming in the window was gently pink from the streetlights reflecting off heavy winter clouds. 

It was the stillest Craig had ever seen Tweek be. He wasn't twitching or shaking, his gaze was focused outside instead of darting around. The only movement at all was one of his fingers tapping against the glass so gently it was barely making a noise. 

"Tweek?" Craig asked, still muzzy. "You okay?"

"Nnhnn," Tweek murmured, hushed. His breath made a small cloud on the window. "It's snowing."

"So?" Craig yawned. He felt cold just looking at Tweek pressed against the window, pale arms sticking out of Craig's T-shirt. "It does that all the time."

"It's pretty," Tweek said. He fell silent after that, absorbed in watching. 

Craig wondered how long Tweek had been sitting there. He wondered if Tweek never really did sleep, or if he'd catch a cold if Craig let him stay there. "Hey. C'mon dude, it's freezing. At least get under the blankets." 

"O-okay," Tweek agreed, sliding back from the window with a last glance backwards. Craig held up the blankets, wincing as cold air slid underneath them, and Tweek shuffled under them. He settled on his side, gaze still towards the window. 

"Are you cold?" Craig reached out to press his hand against Tweek's back; he felt chilled even through the cotton of his T-shirt. Without thinking about anything except warming Tweek up, Craig slid closer until his chest was pressed against Tweek's back. The only comfortable spot for his arm was around Tweek's waist. 

"Craig?" Tweek whispered. "NGH. Is this a boyfriend thing?"

When they'd decided to keep going out, they'd had to figure out for themselves what being boyfriends looked like, both of them agreeing that no surprises was the key to not accidentally freaking each other out (more than usual, in Tweek's case). It had taken some experimentation, especially since their only metric of success was whether girls cooed near them or some fanart showed up in a couple days. Aside from holding hands and walking home together, Tweek waiting nervously outside Craig's class was high on the list, along with Craig letting Tweek wear his hat the one time. Ever since they'd made the list, Tweek would sometimes peer at Craig nervously and ask that same question: is this a boyfriend thing? Craig would usually snap a yes or a no, wishing Tweek would just wing it rather than putting the pressure of deciding on Craig over whether mundane stuff like breaking a chocolate bar in half was a gay enough action. 

"I don't know," Craig said this time. "Why do you keep asking me? Why would I know any more than you do what being boyfriends is like?"

" _No_ , UGH," Tweek hissed, more vehemently than Craig expected. "That's not what…I…"

"Sorry, forget it," Craig said, lifting his arm when Tweek squirmed under it. He felt bad for bringing it up when a minute ago Tweek had been actually kind of relaxed. 

"Not what I'm—ERK—a-asking. I don't get it! Why you, nngh, when nobody's, nobody's here!" Tweek shrunk in on himself, like he was trying to be small enough to ignore. "Why? Ugh, Jesus. If no one can see, it's not! You know!"

Craig took a second to try and untangle Tweek's question before answering; he was getting a little better at it by now. "Every time you ask me that, I thought you were asking whether it's a thing that boyfriends do. That's not it?" Tweek grunted a yes. "You're asking me…if it's only for people to see? Like on the couch. You were asking me if I only wanted you to stay over just for show, or…what?"

"For, you know, m-me." Tweek was fidgeting. His fingers brushed the back of Craig's wrist, still chilled from the window glass. "Like asking C-Clyde or Token. For hanging out."

"Oh." Craig thought he might understand now. "If I didn't want you to stay over, I'd have said. I don't do crap I don't want to. Hanging out with you is fine, man. You're even kind of fun, when you aren't having a panic attack."

"Hnn," Tweek said, a noise Craig couldn't decode yet. Tweek's fingers pushed harder against Craig's wrist. "B-but—"

"Sorry, you just seemed cold." Craig pulled his arm back and rolled over; it had been kind of weird and over the line, given that he couldn't give their public act as in excuse. "Good night."

Tweek was shuffling around, making the blankets rustle, and then he slid backwards far enough that his back was pressed against Craig's, too much of it to be an accident. 

"I'm warm now," Tweek announced. "I won't k-keep you awake, nggh, promise."

"You're fine," Craig told him, shutting his eyes. He was a heavy sleeper. "You sleep too."

"I'll try," Tweek said solemnly. 

He was sitting up and fiddling with his phone when Craig woke up in the morning, so it was unclear whether he had slept at all, but he managed to get toothpaste onto his toothbrush in one try unlike the night before, which seemed like an improvement. 

****

Craig hadn't set out with the explicit intention of replacing Stripe. They'd been on a movie date, huddled in the back corner of the theater so Tweek's jumpiness and hissed exclamations wouldn't bother anyone else. It wasn't even a scary movie, just some action thing, but the first fight scene had Tweek twisting his fingers in the sleeve of Craig's sweatshirt, and by the car chase sequence Tweek would have been practically in Craig's lap if it weren't for the arm rest. 

Halfway through, Craig noticed out of the corner of his eye that Tweek's eyes were shut, and when he turned his head to really look, Tweek's breathing seemed shallow. 

"You okay?" he whispered, nudging Tweek's shoulder. 

"ACK!" Tweek jerked at the unexpected contact, eyes popping open. Darting this way and that, Tweek's gaze focused on Craig just long enough to look pleading. "C-can we, nngh, sorry. Go! Can we p-please go?"

"Yeah," Craig agreed, not into the movie enough to force Tweek to suffer any more. Tweek seemed to gather himself a minimal amount once they were out in the lobby, the noise of explosions and gunfire muffled to nearly nothing by the closing theater door. He muttered another apology, looking wretched. "Whatever, man. It sucked. I'll catch the end on Netflix."

Tweek gave him a look so grateful Craig had to look away, because it wasn't that big of a deal. It hadn't even been his money, his Dad still on that weird money thing. 

They had an hour to kill until Craig's mother came to pick them up, and the pet store was only a few doors down from the theater. The window showcase had a litter of striped gray and orange kittens playing, which Tweek watched with interest through the glass, but was a lot less interested in once they'd gone inside and touching became a possibility. He watched quietly as Craig had leaned over the glass to pet the ones he could reach, and then they'd gone to make faces at the fish and watch how gross the snails were, oozing around. 

The guinea pig enclosure was just past the fish; Craig tried not to look at it. It always bothered him that they kept the guinea pigs in cages way too small to run enough, and there was still a raw spot in the center of his chest where Stripe #3 had been living. But he ended up looking anyway when Tweek stopped right in front of the guinea pig terrarium, crouching down a little, and said, "He looks scared."

Swallowing a sigh, Craig crouched down too. There was only one guinea pig left, any siblings already sold, cowering in a pink plastic igloo too translucent to make a good hiding place. It was tan and brown with a white stripe up its nose, small enough to fit on Craig's outstretched hand. It blinked at the two of them nervously, trying to back up, but its butt was already touching the igloo wall. 

"Would you like to hold him?" a sales girl asked behind them, making them both startle. Craig opened his mouth to say no, but it came out yes instead, and a minute later the guinea pig was settled against his chest, claws digging into Craig's coat sleeve. He hadn't squeaked or cried when the girl cornered him and scooped him up, only eyed Craig with accusation, like this was all his fault. 

"He seems n-nice," Tweek said. He leaned in a little, but his hands were clasped behind his back like he didn't trust himself not to reach. "Um. Should we. I. Do you…UGH," Tweek huffed an irritated noise at not being able to get his thought into words. "My parents gave me fifty bucks this morning and your guinea pig died."

Craig and Tweek stared at each other. 

"FUCK," Tweek blurted, making the sales girl tsk. "Sorry, I didn't mean to say that! Jesus!"

"You don't have to do that," Craig said, having got the gist of what Tweek was offering. It made him feel funny, Tweek trying to do something nice for him; he swallowed the urge to ask, teasing, "Is this a boyfriend thing?"

"Oh, I…agh!" Tweek clutched at his elbow, looking away. "He looks scared. And you p-paid for the movie, so."

Craig slid his hand under the guinea pig's soft belly, lifting him up to eye level. "Hey. Would you be a good Stripe #4?" The guinea pig gave a high, thin _wheeeek_ , back leg kicking. That was cute enough to do, he supposed. Craig looked back at Tweek. "Okay. If you really want to."

"Yeah," Tweek breathed, giving him the same grateful, surprised look as when Craig had agreed to leave the movie theater. 

Tweek's fifty dollars covered the guinea pig and a new bag of food, plus a grass hut for Stripe to hide in that was a heck of a lot safer a guinea pig to chew on than a plastic igloo. Tweek watched, scuffing his sneakers against the floor, as the girl tucked Stripe into a cardboard box and closed the top flap, then ushered them up to the register. 

"Won't he be c-cold?" Tweek asked as they walked back towards the movie theater. He glanced over in concern every time they heard the guinea pig's nails scrabble against the cardboard. 

"He'll be all right for a couple minutes," Craig promised. He was already thinking about whether he could zip his coat around the box, but as he was about to try his mother came around the corner in her car and pulled up to the curb. 

"And just what is _that_ , young man?" his mother demanded when the boys scrambled into the back seat, the pet store box clutched protectively in Craig's hands. 

"Tweek bought him for me," Craig said, thinking fast. Shit, he really should have called his mother to ask first. He made a face at Tweek, urging him to play along. "It's our one month anniversary." 

"AGH." Tweek fumbled latching his seatbelt in surprise, but he shook it off after glancing at Craig's face. "Right! We, uh, picked him out. Together!"

Craig's mother eyed them for a long, unimpressed second, Craig holding his breath, Tweek twitching gently, Stripe scrabbling softly. She turned around with a soft snort. "I suppose it's all right, since you still have the cage. I hope he has better luck than his predecessors!"

"Jesus, Mom!" Craig flipped off his mother. She spotted him in the rearview mirror and flipped him off back. Rolling his eyes, Craig turned to Tweek, finally buckled in. Craig sat the cardboard box on the seat between them, nudging it over. "Want to hold him on the way home?"

"No way!" Tweek shrank back against the door like Stripe was a very cute bomb. "That's way too much pressure! What if he escapes?! And gets under your mom's brake pedal and we all die!"

"He's too big to fit under the brake pedal," Craig said, making Tweek stutter to a stop. Sometimes picking an obvious flaw in Tweek's bizarre scenarios was enough to halt his panicky momentum. It worked halfway this time, Tweek turning his attention to icy roads and distracted drivers instead. 

At home, Craig had to coax Tweek into watching Stripe for the little bit it would take to set the cage back up. He pushed Tweek down to sit on the carpet of the bedroom so he couldn't fall or drop anything, and set the cardboard box between Tweek's knees so that even if Stripe did get brave enough to come out, he'd be fenced in by Tweek's legs. 

"He probably won't even move," Craig assured. Tweek looked up at Craig plaintively, not unlike the look Stripe gave him when he opened the flaps of the box and gently turned the box on its side so that the guinea pig could come out on the carpet if he wanted to. "Moving homes scares guinea pigs a lot, and it'll only take me fifteen minutes to put bedding and stuff back in the cage. Just keep him company, okay? Talk to him."

"Nnnnngh," Tweek groaned, slumping against Craig's bed. Craig wondered as he went downstairs to the basement whether he might come back to find both Tweek and Stripe hiding under the bed. The idea made him chuckle to himself. 

It took a little longer than he thought because he couldn't find the water bottle at first and he hadn't cleaned off some of the cage pieces very well after Stripe #3 had died. But Craig was satisfied in the end as he dusted wood chips off his hands, food and water and hay and hidey hut all ready for Stripe #4. He headed back up to his room and pushed the door open, opening his mouth to call Tweek's name, but he stopped before any sound came out at the sight in front of him. 

Tweek was stretched out on the floor on his stomach, cheek on the carpet and face close to the box, still open on its side. He was so still that Craig would have thought he was asleep if he hadn't heard Tweek talking quietly to the guinea pig, verbal tics and all. Stripe was standing just inside the edge of the box, only his head sticking out and watching Tweek unblinkingly. 

"…don't worry," Tweek was muttering when Craig started catching words. "Craig is nice, p-promise. When I'm scared, ugh, and anxious, he's calm. You're so little, Jesus, I'd be so sc-scared if I were…but Craig's making you a hiding place. I h-hope you aren't scared of him."

"Who's scary?" Craig asked suddenly, just to make Tweek yelp. The guinea pig scrambled back into the back corner of the box, and Tweek pushed himself up to glare at Craig accusingly. Tweek was kind of like a guinea pig himself, Craig thought, jumpy and making weird noises and hair sticking out all over. Maybe that was a reason Craig liked him. 

"Asshole," Tweek scared, pointing at Stripe. "You scared him!"

"Just him?" Craig laughed as Tweek flipped him the middle finger; maybe they were spending too much time together. He bent down to scoop the box off the floor, making sure Stripe was safely tucked inside. "Come on, let's take him to see his cage."

Stripe dashed for the grass hut and cowered inside as soon as his little pink feet touched the wood chips. Still, he hadn't tried to nip Craig when he'd scooped him up or cried too loudly, so Craig thought he'd probably come around in a couple days after he adjusted. He was certainly an improvement over Stripe #2 who had used peeing as a defense mechanism for weeks. Craig tugged at Tweek's shoulder. 

"We shouldn't poke at him for a couple days until he gets used to it here," Craig said. "Like not reach in and chase him around or anything."

"Oh." Tweek looked surprisingly reluctant to go back upstairs, rubbing fingers along the top edge of the cage. "Can we stay if we're qu-quiet, though? So he isn't alone."

Craig sighed, thinking of his comfortable couch and video games upstairs in the living room. "Yeah. We can do homework down here for a while."

It was questionable how much homework Tweek actually did, gaze drifting back over to the guinea pig cage every few minutes. Craig was a little surprised that Tweek was showing so much interest, since he'd been adamant about not holding Stripe even when Craig offered to put him right in Tweek's lap, Tweek whining about pressure and dropping him. 

Instead Tweek leaned over the edge of Stripe's cage when he visited and talked to him, holding out pieces of carrot or cucumber with shaking fingers. It wasn't long before Stripe was coming out of his hut at the sound of Tweek's voice, _wheeking_ hopefully and sometimes even stretching up on his hind legs. If he heard Tweek before Tweek had come to say hello, Stripe would make an indignant fuss at being ignored. 

"He likes you more than me," Craig complained one afternoon, both of them sitting on the couch with Stripe on a blanket in a box lid between them; Craig's mother had warned if there was one drop of guinea pig pee on the couch Stripe #4 would be the end of a dynasty. When it was just Craig, Stripe would spend his time rooting around in the blanket or watching the TV, but with Tweek right there, Stripe kept trying to scramble up Tweek's leg and into his lap. 

"Agh! Stripe, no!" Tweek scolded, pushing Stripe back down with gentle hands. He pressed down on Stripe's back, as if to stick him down, and Stripe let out a loud purr. "JESUS! What was that?!" 

"He purred," Craig explained, laughing. "He does that all the time. He likes having his back scratched." Craig paused his game so he could watch Tweek's dubious expression, twitching as Stripe rumbled another loud purr. "It means he's happy."

"Good," Tweek said, mouth twitching up in a smile as Stripe turned his head to lick Tweek's hand. "He's good, right? I got you a good one?"

"Stripe is the best!" Craig exclaimed proudly, reaching over to pet Stripe's back. His fingers brushed against Tweek's and Craig felt a flutter in his chest like he sort of wanted to purr too; it happened sometimes with Tweek if Tweek said something unexpectedly funny or Tweek grabbed his hand first in the hallway instead of the other way around. Stripe wriggled under their hands, still trying to climb on Tweek. "Dude, just let him."

"C-craig, no!" Tweek protested, but it was too late already, Stripe hopping up with a kick of his back feet, puttering around on Tweek's jeans for a second before nosing with obvious interest at one of Tweek's undone buttons. "ERK! Don't eat that! Craig! He'll die!" 

"You're fine," Craig told him, unpausing his game and trying not to smile too obviously as Tweek tried to cope with the guinea pig's curious affection. Every time Tweek made a weird noise, Stripe purred back at him, which Craig found much more hilarious than Tweek did. 

Floor time with Stripe was even funnier the next time Tweek spent the night, Tweek much more comfortable on his stomach on the blanket they'd spread out in the kitchen, watching Stripe scamper this way and that around the cardboard tubes and boxes they'd put down for him. When Stripe popcorned unexpectedly, Tweek shrieked in surprise and jerked just as spastically, sending the guinea pig scuttling away. Craig cracked up laughing, a long minute before he could explain to Tweek that popcorning was an entirely normal guinea pig thing, while Tweek worked himself up into a lather about buying Craig a defective guinea pig. 

"He's not defective," Craig snickered, starting to calm down. He tapped the blanket in front of him and Stripe trotted over curiously, looking hopefully for a treat. Stripe gave another unexpected _pop_ , and Tweek twitched in response; Craig started laughing again but refused to explain why even when Tweek glared at him. 

****

In front of his locker, Tweek was rambling on about a conspiracy documentary he'd watched the night before. Craig was partially listening and partially thinking about how it was weirdly cute that Tweek's shirt was, as usual, mis-buttoned. He'd tried to think of a another word to use for Tweek, because cute sounded pretty gay, but they were about to have their two month anniversary and Craig had come to grips with the fact that he thought Tweek was cute and sometimes some other gay stuff too. 

Right now it was pretty cute that he'd missed his fourth and sixth shirt buttons, so every time Tweek gestured frantically, it bared a stripe of winter-pale skin just above his belt. Craig's amusement melted away when he glanced to the side and noticed two of the Korean girls giggling, gaze directed just as low as Craig's had been a minute ago. 

"Tcht," Craig grunted, reaching for Tweek's buttons. 

"C-Craig!" Tweek yelped when he realized that Craig was undoing his shirt buttons. He tried to twitch backwards, but he only banged his elbow against his locker. "Ack! Dude!"

"Yeah, babe?" Craig redid the bottom half of the buttons and smoothed Tweek's shirt down, satisfied nobody else would be sneaking a peek. When he glanced up, Tweek was turning pink across his nose, and Craig had to work to keep his face in its usual neutral expression. "Come on, we'll be late for class."

Any other day Craig would have reached for Tweek's hand, but those girls were still there, and Craig was still standing in Tweek's space, so today he slid an arm around Tweek's waist instead, tugging him along. Tweek shifted in Craig's grip, and Craig waited to see if he would pull away; Tweak did that sometimes if he was too anxious for touching or Craig surprised him. Not this time, though. After half a dozen steps, Tweek settled in against Craig's side.

Craig could have thought that he was overreacting a little, except for how three days later some fanart appeared on the bulletin board of just Tweek with all his buttons undone and his hand splayed across his belly, a shy blush across his cheeks. Craig could have torn it off the board, but in his experience something even worse would takes its place. 

"Wow, dude," Kenny said, appearing at Craig's shoulder and making him yelp like Tweek. "Good thing you snagged that guy before he became such a hot commodity!"

"Shut the fuck up!" Craig snapped, shoving Kenny. Kenny trotted off, laughter muffled but loud behind his hood. 

Three days later, Craig caught himself redoing Tweek's buttons again and realized maybe he wasn't solving the problem at the source. Grabbing Tweek's hand, he dragged him into the nearest bathroom. 

"GAH!" Tweek tried to yank his hand back, but Craig's grip was too firm. "What are you—"

"Take your shirt off," Craig ordered, stripping off his sweatshirt. When it cleared his head, Tweek was staring at him, green eyes wide as headlights. They nearly popped out of his head when Craig tugged his T-shirt over his head too. "Come on, do it."

"CRAIG!" Tweek protested. He jerked and tried to slap Craig's hands away when Craig reached over to undo Tweek's buttons himself; Tweek banged his hip into the sinks hard. "JESUS CHRIST!"

"Calm down," Craig told him, managing to strip Tweek's button down off despite him squirming like a cat trying to escape a bath. He pushed his T-shirt into Tweek's hands. "Put this on."

"Nnnngh," Tweek groaned. He stuck his arm through the collar hole on the first try before finally getting it right. It was one of Craig's older Red Racer shirts, a little stretched out because Craig was starting to outgrow it, but it looked fine on Tweek's skinnier frame. Tweek tugged anxiously at the hem before looking up. Craig held his button down out; Tweek took it back with a frown. 

"Why do you wear those if you suck so much at buttons?" Craig asked, tugging his sweatshirt back on. 

"They're—ACK—the only thing my parents buy me," Tweek protested. He tugged his shirt back on, leaving it open over the T-shirt but fussing with the collar between twitching fingers. Craig reached over to tuck the tag in, making Tweek yelp. The two shirts didn't match at all, colors clashing, but that was sort of cutely Tweek too. 

"Well, you can have some of my T-shirts if you want," Craig offered. Tweek had fallen still, looking down at the T-shirt, fingers twisted in the hem. "We're overdue for a mall date anyway, if you want to pick some for yourself." Tweek still didn't move. "Tweek?"

"It's because of that art," Tweek said, splaying his hand over his stomach in case somehow Craig didn't know which one. Craig's eyes felt glued to the back of Tweek's hand until Tweek said, "Eyes up here." When Craig dragged his eyes up, Tweek was smiling just a little, with one corner of his mouth. "There was one of you, you know. I ripped it down. It was you in your hat."

Craig's hand drifted up to his chullo. "What's wrong with my—"

"Just the hat," Tweek interrupted, shoulders twitching, maybe from laughter. The bathroom door banged open behind them and for once it was Craig, not Tweek, who yelped. 

"JESUS CHRIST," Cartman's voice bellowed, echoing on the tile like an audible headache. "Is this the gay fucking bathroom now? Can't you assholes put up a sign if you're gonna get busy in a public facility, godDAMN! BUTTERS! Butters, get over here and look to see if whatever's going on in there is going to burn out my retinas with gayness!"

"Shut up, fatass," Craig shot back, grabbing Tweek's hand to pull him along, leaving one hand free to flash Cartman the finger. 

******

Tweek gave a huge yawn, and it was so unexpected that Craig looked over at him. They were slumped shoulder to shoulder on Tweek's couch, Craig's laptop partially across both of their laps, trying to finish a report on the Civil War. Not that Craig had particularly enjoyed Mr. Garrison, but having a real teacher who expected real work kind of sucked donkey balls. They'd had to interview some adults downtown about the confederate flag and it had not gone well. Tweek had been so overwrought that they were going to have the shit beat out of them at one point that Craig was mildly surprised he hadn't passed out outright. 

Now Tweek's eyes were drooping, brow scrunched in annoyance as he tried to keep them open. 

"You okay?" Craig asked, hands paused above the keyboard. "You look…sleepy? What the hell is that about?"

"I don't knoooow," Tweek grumbled, trying to shift himself into a more upright position, but only managing to rub his face more against Craig's shoulder. "Dammit! It keeps, urgh, happening! I probably have like Dengue Sleeping Sickness! Or my sickle cells are anemic! Fuck!"

"Neither of those are a thing, honey," Craig told him, rolling his eyes. He leaned his head over to press his cheek more against Tweek's forehead, trying to check if he felt feverish while continuing to type. They needed another hundred words and Craig just wanted to be done already. 

"I'll need transfusions!" Tweek moaned, body jerking nervously into Craig's side. "That's how you get AIDS! I'll, AGH, be another victim of the gay AIDS epidemic! Fuck needles, man!"

"Shh, shut up and help," Craig ordered, nudging at Tweek with his shoulder. Tweek relaxed a minimal amount with one more grumble about dirty needles. Tweek was helpful for about fifty words, then fell silent as Craig wrote in conclusion that maybe what South Park needed was so many confederate flags that they lost all meaning and everybody would get so sick of them that even the rednecks would demand to get rid of them as part of the libtard agenda. "Whatever. That's probably fine. Right?" Tweek didn't answer. "Babe?"

Tweek was asleep when Craig actually turned his head and looked, out cold with his head tilted back against the couch and mouth slack, hands not even twitching. Even though Craig spent half of every sleepover trying to convince Tweek to at least try to do exactly this, he was so startled it was happening that he reached over and shook Tweek before he even thought about what he was doing. 

"FUCK," Tweek snapped, jerking awake and glancing around wildly. "WHAT?! What's happening?!" 

"Nothing, sorry," Craig soothed, feeling immediately bad for doing that. "Dude, you fell asleep. I…never saw you do that before."

"Right?!" Tweek demanded. He reached up to yank on a tuft of his hair, whether trying to wake himself up more or in just general frustration, Craig wasn't sure. "I don't know—ERK—what's happening! It's this fucking couch!" 

"It's…what?" Craig looked away a second, making sure he saved their work just in case of Tweek disaster or laptop gnomes or whatever. 

"Right here!" Tweek pointed angrily at the couch they were sitting on. "I get all heavy, like, JESUS, like when aliens freeze you to abduct you! My body gets all heavy! Then I pass out! Mom comes in here and yells at me to quit being so lazy, then when I go upstairs to bed I can't, AGH, I can't sleep!"

"That's fucking weird," Craig agreed. Tweek opened his mouth then shut it again, shoulders jerking, like he did when he was ready to argue but Craig unexpectedly agreed with him instead. "What are you doing here when it happens?"

"Nothing weird!" Tweek snapped, like Craig was accusing him of weird couch porn or something. "School stuff! Skyping you, or, ugh, Facebook, or watching eh-whatever!"

"On the laptop?" Craig pointed at his laptop. He'd lent it to Tweek a couple weeks ago when Tweek's ancient desktop had fried itself, since it seemed uncertain when Tweek's parents would get around to replacing it; Craig used his iPad more often these days anyway and could use the PC in his dad's office if he really had to. "That's the only thing that's different, right?"

"What's your laptop doing to me?!" Tweek demanded, always ready to hop on a new conspiracy theory. He pulled his knees up to his chest protectively and glared at Craig over top of them. "It's beaming shit into my brain! SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES! It's frying my neurons! I'll—UGH—be a pod person!" 

"Hey, man!" Craig snapped back, a little stung Tweek was shitting on his computer when he'd given it to Tweek as a favor. As he was working up to spit a few more curses, the computer had a weird system hiccup, by chance turning off the warm light filter for a split second, screen tinting sharply blue before righted itself. 

"WHAT WAS THAT?" Tweek hollered, yanking the blanket off the back of the couch to cover himself. "ALIENS ARE COMING! HOMOPHOBE ALIENS! FUCKING PROBES!"

"Oh shit," Craig said, having a sudden revelation about what the source of the issue might be. Distantly he was glad he could skip over the argument about why if aliens were homophobes they would want to watch you be probed. "You've been using the laptop at night a lot, right? Instead of your phone?"

"Yeah," Tweek's muffled voice came out from under the blanket. Craig reached over to yank the blanket down so that Tweek's face emerged, scowling at him, hair whorled up with static on one side, crushed flat from napping on the other. 

"I bet it's the warm light setting." Tweek narrowed his eyes in confusion. "It has a setting to change the screen's light from blue light to orange light after sunset. Blue light's shitty for your eyes and jacks up your brain's timing so it doesn't know when to sleep. I bet your eyes are twitching less too."

Craig and Tweek stared at each other for three or four long seconds. Tweek's eye only twitched once. 

"Yup," Craig assessed. Tweek grumbled something to himself, trying to process this new information into something that could kill him. "Your desktop was ancient so it didn't do it, most laptops have it as an automatic setting now. Gimme your phone."

"Why?" Tweek wanted to know. Craig didn't bother answering, just reached over and plucked the phone from Tweek's thigh. He shoved the laptop into Tweek's lap to hold, and Tweek glared at it like it was a friend who had unexpectedly betrayed him. 

"I'm turning it on on your phone too," Craig told Tweek, prompting a "GAH!" from Tweek. "It's stupid we didn't think of this earlier, you're always staring at this thing."

"Don't activate mind control settings on my phone, Jesus!" Tweek yelped. Craig shook his head; honestly this guy. 

"Now the blue light won't wake you back up when you're in bed," Craig explained. "You won't even noticed the difference, your eyes automatically shift the color. I bet you've had less headaches lately too, mine almost went the whole way away after I got the laptop. Do you? Right now?"

"Only a little one," Tweek admitted grudgingly. He still looked belligerent. 

"What?" Craig demanded. Tweek looked from the laptop to Craig, rubbing at the sharp bones of his wrist anxiously. 

"Sleep deprivation is my thing, nngh. If I'm sleeping, who am I? Fuck, I won't know if the gnomes are coming! There might, shit, be stuff that happens, or someone might break in the house, or—"

"You can't do anything about that stuff even if you were awake," Craig pointed out, making Tweek frown. "The gnomes still steal your underwear. What are you going to do, fight an armed burglar?" Tweek clenched his jaw as if he were struggling with that, then slumped back against the couch. 

"I guess," he muttered. Craig was darkly amused that giving in and presenting Tweek with extra nightmare scenarios sometimes still worked better than anything else. Tweek's gaze drifted down to their report. "Is this done?"

"Probably." Craig slid an arm around Tweek's waist to drag them hip to hip again, so they could both see the laptop screen. Tweek relaxed into Craig's side by slow degrees, the blanket still around his shoulders. "You read it once."

"It's fine," Tweek shrugged, too quickly to have done more than skim it, but Craig didn't care either as he flipped control+s to save one more time. An hour ago he'd been anxious to get this out of the way so he could try to knock out a couple missions on the first person shooter he'd been stuck on, but now with Tweek slumped against his shoulder, it seemed less important. 

"Wanna watch something?" he asked, already clicking open his browser. Tweek mumbled that he didn't care. Craig settled on the next episode of some anime they'd been watching about dungeons and picking up girls; it was a little harem-y, but funny. "Dude, why do they always show you this giant tower that goes up into the clouds when every time they're inside it, they're always going down all the stairs?"

Fifteen minutes later, Tweek was dead weight against Craig's shoulder, breathing steady, only giving an occasional soft twitch. This time Craig had no urge to wake him up at all, letting his cheek lean against the top of Tweek's head and trying not to laugh so he didn't jostle him. 

******

Summer was winding down, and on top of his usual new school year ennui, Craig was bracing himself for a shitstorm of Tweek anxiety. Tweek had been a wreck for a solid week last year and that was just going into the fifth grade; this year they were moving to the middle school, and Craig had assumed that the thought of all that newness would send Tweek directly into a nosedive. 

But with four days left and counting, Tweek wasn't acting any differently than usual, at least so far as Craig could see. He was actually a little quieter than usual, subdued, slumped on the couch next to Craig while they played video games or tried to finish their summer reading. Craig didn't press it; Tweek would talk when he was ready, and poking him about it before he was ready never led to anything good. 

This afternoon they were at the park, dangling lazily on the creaking swings. They'd been at the pool that morning but left when it got crowded. They both still reeked of chlorine and Tweek's hair was limp from the heat. He was overdue for his start of school haircut and openly avoiding his mother so she couldn't drag him to the barber ("SCISSORS, Craig! RAZORS EVERYWHERE!"); privately Craig liked it when Tweek's hair got long enough to flop in his face and was happy to help him dodge his mother for as long as possible. 

Tweek dragged his sneakers through the tanbark at their feet, slowing his swing to a stop. "Craig? Can we—NGH—talk about something?"

Craig stopped his swing too. Tweek was staring at his sneakers. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Tweek answered, sounding kind of like the opposite of okay. "So. You know, school. Is…soon."

"Sucks, huh?" Craig felt a bubble of relief that Tweek just wanted to talk about school finally. "You freaking out?" Tweek opened his mouth and then closed it, grimacing. "Me too."

"What?!" Tweek demanded, head jerking up. "You are?"

"Sure. A little. New building and older kids and harder classes." Craig reached over to peel Tweek's hand off his swing chain, linking their fingers and letting their hands dangle between them. "But you'll be there too. We even have homeroom together since we're alphabetized now. On the first day you can hold my hand as tight as you need to, and if we get lost at least we'll be together."

"Oh," Tweek said miserably. He pulled his hand away, sweat sticking their palms together, and dropped it into his lap. He twisted his fingers in the hem of his faded T-shirt, stretched out from the nervous habit. "No, we. I can't. UGH. This is fucking HARD."

"What is?" Craig was starting to get worried, twisting his swing to the side. He grabbed Tweek's knees and forced him to turn too, so that they were facing each other fully. Tweek still wouldn't look him in the eye. "Babe, come on. I don't know what you're trying to say."

"Jesus," Tweek hissed. He drew a deep, shuddering breath. "There'll be kids we don't know and way more people and you're taller and it's not just the assholes in our class and you aren't gay!"

Craig had absolutely no idea what was going on, but Tweek's face was pale, his eyes a little wet as he stared at Craig like he was willing Craig to understand him via telepathy. Craig suddenly thought of their staged breakup in front of the Asian girls, because Tweek had looked at him the same way back then, nervous and grim but determined. 

"Tweek?" Craig asked, panic crawling up his throat. "You don't want to break up, right?"

"Yes. No." Tweek made a sharp noise, not really a laugh. "We're stuck and I'm, god, I'm so, and you shouldn't be. You should. AAAGH." Tweek finally seemed to gather himself and looked Craig directly in the eye, almost shouting at him with the effort of getting the words to come out in order. "You should date someone real! A girlfriend! Or…well whatever, but someone who wants…who you want to…" Tweek trailed off, shoulders slumping, like his batteries had run out. 

Craig tried to speak but everything seemed to stick in his throat. The silence between them got thicker and thicker, more awkward than any conversation they'd had in years, maybe since the couple days they'd spent in the hospital together after their infamous fight. Craig realized he had to choke out some words, anything. 

"You're real," he said. Tweek didn't move, eyes hidden by the hair flopping in his face. "Jesus, we've been boyfriends for almost two years, that's not fake."

"No, like." Tweek squirmed, but Craig's hands were still on his knees, keeping him from twisting his swing away. "Kissing. And stuff. Sex…stuff. We don't."

"You don't want to?" Craig asked, struggling to keep his voice even. Tweek didn't answer. "You think I don't want to?"

"You _aren't gay_ ," Tweek hissed. He lifted a hand to scrub the back of his hand over his eye. Craig opened his mouth to argue, but Tweek cut him off. "Shut up! I'm giving you an out!"

Craig took one slow breath, and then another. One time last spring they'd tried to learn meditation to see if that would help Tweek (it didn't), and Craig thought about staring at a candle flame and finding his center. He thought about holding Tweek's hand on the way home from school. He thought about sleepovers where Tweek's phone lit his face in soft blues. He thought about video games and movies and the dent on the couch where they naturally fit, Stripe warm and sleepy on their laps, finding guinea pig hairs on their jeans and shirts. He thought about the smell of grass and coffee and dirt and sugar, cupcake icing smudged across Tweek's nose, the shock of static when their hands brushed.

Tweek was the center. 

"All right," Craig said, hoping he sounded calmer than he felt. Wasn't he supposed to be the rational one? Pressure to get every single word right made his chest tight. "Let's go from the beginning. I know I said, when this started, I wasn't gay, but that was a long while ago, and I'm maybe not as sure now. You?"

"M-maybe," Tweek answered, very quietly. 

"And you're right, about the kissing." Craig's cheeks heated, but he kept going. Sometimes he kissed Tweek on the cheek or the forehead, a handful of times on the lips when it seemed particularly important; the idea of more than that made Craig feel anxious but excited, stomach twisting pleasantly. "I do want to do that. Sex stuff too. Not right this second, but someday. Maybe soon. Do you think about that too? Like in general?"

"Uh-huh." Tweek dragged the toe of his sneaker through the dirt. He was blushing, pink dusting the sharp edges of his cheekbones. 

"With me?" Craig pressed. Tweek made a soft noise of distress. "I know I told you a bunch of times at the beginning I wasn't gay, but the other thing I said was that I can't be something I'm not. So I guess I should have told you way earlier, but this isn't something I'm not. Being your boyfriend isn't something I'm just faking my way through. I haven't thought of this as fake since…honestly I can't even remember, dude."

"Try," Tweek ordered, lifting his head. He was chewing his lower lip, scrutinizing Craig's face. "Tell me."

"Since…" Craig thought back, carefully. "When Clyde told me if we went high enough on the swings we could flip over the top of them. I fell and hit my head and when I woke up, everyone else had run away but you were kneeling next to me. You were crying because you thought I was dead. I had a concussion and threw up on your shoes and you didn't even care. Since then."

"Since you stood on the sidewalk waiting for me and holding out your hand," Tweek said. He pushed his hair out of his face and his eyes were wide and glassy, staring hard at Craig. "Everyone was staring and flipping out but you held my hand the whole way to school, in front of everybody."

"That's the whole entire time!" Craig snorted, his heart beating against his chest like a small bird trying to escape the cage of his ribs. He stood up, swing smacking into his legs, and grabbed the shoulders of Tweek's T-shirt to pull him up from his swing too. He wrapped his arms around Tweek's shoulders, squeezing him into a hug. "You idiot, I'm not stuck with you. I choose you, every day."

Tweek started laughing, hard, shoulders shaking. "Th-that's what Stan and Kyle said."

"What?" Craig asked. 

"When they tricked us, the f-fight! 'Craig chooses you!'" Tweek was hiccuping now, face pressed against Craig's shirt. Craig held on until the hiccups subsided, and even after that, even though it was sweaty and gross to be so close when it was this hot outside. He held on until Tweek was entirely still, and Tweek didn't move even when Craig backed up a step to see his face. "You told Principal PC I couldn't touch your penis."

"What the fuck, dude?!" Craig demanded, a startled laugh escaping him. He hadn't thought about that in so long; he'd been so mad that day in the principal's office. Now it seemed funny. "Ask me again."

"Craig!" Tweek's expression was serious, only his eyes sparkling with humor. "Ngh. Can I touch your penis?"

"Yeah," Craig answered, face on fire but forcing his expression to stay serious like Tweek's. "Yeah, I'm comfortable with that."

"Jesus CHRIST," Tweek shrieked in delight. Craig cupped Tweek's cheeks in his hands, the edges of Tweek's smile curving against his palms, and kissed him like every fan artist in South Park was watching them. What made it great was that nobody was watching them, that Craig did it just because he wanted to, and that nobody saw how Tweek was flushed bright pink from it by the time the kiss broke, or that Tweek was the one who started the second kiss, and the third. 

But Craig still repeated the kiss in the hallway on the first day of middle school, just to make absolutely sure that everybody got the memo about keeping their hands off his boyfriend.


End file.
